House Dems: 39 IRS and Treasury officials deny White House targeting

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, speaks during a committee meeting to determine whether to hold IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt last month. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Thirty-nine current and former IRS and Treasury officials have all denied any knowledge of the White House involvement in targeting Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny, according to a report by Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

The report is the latest salvo in a series of dueling reports out of the committee as part of its investigation of the Tea Party affair. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the top Democrat on the committee, said he was releasing the excerpts so “the American people can actually see what each one of these 39 witnesses told the Committee” and that those excerpts show “there was no White House involvement or political motivation in the screening of tax exempt applicants.”

Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., last year described the IRS scrutiny of Tea Party groups as “a targeting of the president’s political enemies” and, more recently, alleged that “political pressure from prominent Democrats” led the IRS to act.

Even without Lerner, the committee has interviewed — almost entirely behind closed doors — 39 current and former IRS and Treasury officials. The highest ranking among them is Mark Mazur, the assistant secretary of the Treasury for tax policy, whose response to questions about White House involvement was typical:

Q: Did you ever receive direction from the President to target Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status?

A: No.

Q: Have you ever felt that, based on any public or private statements by the President, that he wanted the Treasury Department to target Tea Party applications for tax-exempt status?

A: No.

Q: Did you ever receive direction from anyone in the White House to target Tea Party groups applying for tax-exempt status?

A: No.

Q: Have any of your actions during your tenure at the Treasury Department been motivated by bias against the Tea Party?

A: No.

Q: Did anyone at the Treasury Department ever tell you that their actions as a Treasury Department employee were motivated by bias against the Tea Party?

A: To the best of my recollection, no.

Frederick Hill, deputy staff director for the Oversight panel, accused Cummings of “cherry-picking” and “distorting” the evidence. In response, he released excerpts showing that the attorney for some IRS employees, Robert Weinberg, accused Democrats of trying to put words in his clients’ mouths.

Early on in the interviews, Democrats had released an interview with Cincinnati supervisor John Shafer, a self-described “conservative Republican” who said he had no knowledge of White House involvement. But Weinberg objected that Democrats released that transcript, “knowing that John Shafer wouldn’t have a clue one way or the other as to what happened at the White House.”

In the interviews, Treasury officials also denied that they used guidance or regulations in an attempt to impact Tea Party groups. “I must say, I am not sure what you mean by using the guidance process, but I’ve never done anything, you know, to achieve the effect that you described, ” said Treasury Chief of Staff Christian Weideman, “including anything in connection with administrative actions or guidance.”